Entomology is the study of insects. Aquatic
insects spend their larval existence on or under water, where they are the
major food source for fish. Understanding aquatic insects, and
employing artificial flies to imitate them, are several of the many
challenges of flyfishing.

This site was developed by Roger Rohrbeck, a fly fisher from the state of
Washington, USA. Following a lengthy career in information technology, retirement
provided the opportunity to pursue a long-held interest in flyfishing entomology.

This site contains more than (200) pages of highly structured
information with more than (80) illustrations and more than (3,200)
internal links to facilitate access. In addition, multiple
databases provide query
capability. The most effective way to appreciate the breadth and
depth of this coverage is to view the Site Map by clicking
here.

Taxonomic structure is the scheme of hierarchical classification used by zoological
classification experts (taxonomists) to describe living things. It customarily
starts with kingdom and works its way down to species.

On this site, the hierarchy has been portrayed with the highest
displayed hierarchical level in the leftmost column, and with lower
levels in columns to the right. As a practical matter, this has
necessitated breaking the structure into numerous pages, which are
linked from senior to junior page.
can be used to retreat back up the hierarchy. Access the taxonomic
structure by clicking here.

The State of Washington Department of Ecology has sampled stream-resident
benthic macro-invertebrates for over ten years as a component of their response to the Federal Clean Water Act.
Detailed information concerning these samples is contained in an (annually updated) MS Access database, which is made
available to the public via download.

The WA stream-resident aquatic macro-invertebrates page on this site is a summarization of detail contained in that database,
supplemented with the common name provided for each taxon at family level or above, and listed in sequence of common name.
Access the
macro-invertebrate list by clicking here.

Many of my flyfishing entomology reference books were published at least 20 years
ago, and some much longer. Although these books remain rich sources of information,
many taxonomic re-classifications have taken place in the intervening years.

Initially, I printed a chart of taxonomic updates for each book, and taped it to the
inside of the back cover. My taxonomic update pages for these books are intended to
provide my website visitors with that same information.

Illustrations of various aquatic insects (and other macroinvertebrates) are
contained within the books in my library. Most of these books don't contain an index
of their illustrations.

The consolidated illustration index is simply an attempt to bring order and efficiency to
the process of searching for insect illustrations. If you don't have ready access to
the actual reference book, this index may be of limited value. However, at least
you'll know which book contains the desired illustrations when you visit a flyshop,
bookstore, or library. Access the consolidated illustration index query by clicking
here.

Entomology texts traditionally rely on a long series of couplets (either this or
that) to identify organisms. Frequently, one is unable to successfully navigate these
couplets. This may be because one has only a photo of the insect, and the
feature in question cannot be seen in the photo; or because dissection and/or a microscope
are required, and one doesn't have that equipment or those skills.

So, to assist the average fly fisher in identifying adult mayflies, another approach
was tried. It seemed there were sufficient readily observable adult mayfly
attributes, that it might be possible to simply describe what one could observe, and (at
least) narrow down the possibilities.

Although the page continues to evolve, I am pleased with the initial results.
However the best judge of that is you, so you might want to give Adult Mayfly Identification a try
by clicking here.

Given the success of using this approach for identification of adult mayflies, I have also applied this technique to identification of adult caddisflies and stoneflies. To access Adult Caddisfly Identification, click
here. To access Adult Stonefly Identification, click
here.

Once you have tried one of them, if you want to do me a real
favor, please send email to let me
know how it worked (or didn't work) for you.